MANGALDAI, Feb 23 - The Sahitya Akademi has conferred its ‘Translation Award in Assamese’ on Tapeswar Sharma for the year 2016. Tapeswar Sharma, an octogenarian retired officer of the Assam Civil Service and a resident of Santipur in Mangaldai, has been recognised for this prestigious literary award for his book ‘Upanisad - Padyanubad’ where he translated Upanisads, collection of Sanskrit texts and considered to be the end part of the Vedic literature, to Assamese in the form of poems.

The Award carries an amount of Rs 50,000 and a copper plaque which will be presented to the recipient at a special function to be held sometime later this year. Born in Deomornoi-Borigaon village of Darrang district, Sharma used to study culture and literature since his childhood and many of his thought-provoking articles published in different newspapers, magazines on a regular basis for which he has already earned the literary pension of the State government.

The award winning book has been published by Banalata Publication of Guwahati and looking into the importance and standard of the book during its draft publication, the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, reportedly extended its support by bearing the 80 per cent of the cost of its first publication.

Talking to this correspondent, Tapeswar Sharma said, “I am really delighted and have no word to express it and at the same time I am also surprised. It’s the outcome of the well-wishes of the people around me and I am really pleased that I can bring pride to Darrang as well as Assam.”

Regarding the book, he said, “Upanisads are quite serious nature of literary works, so it’s not considered for the common readers, the reason why it failed to get necessary publicity. However, I am hopeful that from now on, it will get a good publicity and common readers will go through it.”

It may be recalled here that Tapeswar Sharma is the second litterateur from the district after Prabhat Sharma Shastri, a retired professor of Mangaldai College and a resident of Bamunpara, Mangaldai. Shastri got this Award in 2002 for his translated book Kadambari, originally authored in Sanskrit by Banabhatta.